BREAKING: Houston Mayor Drops Subpoenas of Sermons from Five Pastors, backtracks

[TemplarKormac]

Well, religious liberty has won.

HOUSTON (KTRK) --
There was big news out of Houston City Hall. The city is withdrawing subpoenas sent to five Houston pastors, which requested their sermons related to the Houston Equal rights Ordinance.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker made the announcement this morning.

"It was never our intention to interfere with any members of the clergy and their congregants in terms of sermons, in terms of preaching what they believe is the word of the God they serve," said Mayor Parker. "However, it is of course my responsibility to defend the city when we were sued as we were in this case."

Mayor Parker came to the decision after meeting with both local and national religious leaders yesterday.

"Protecting the HERO from being repealed is important to Houston, but I also understand the concerns of the religious community regarding the subpoenas," said Mayor Parker.

http://abc13.com/news/city-withdraw...:+abc13houstonnews+(abc13.com+-+Houston+News)

 

[TemplarKormac]

Interesting... I guess some people must be disappointed with this decision. Good.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Well then, lets not all jump for joy here...

 

[Wake]

I'm not familiar with this story.

Religious liberty being preserved is one point I believe in.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Back pedaling like a circus clown on a unicycle.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Wake

Yeah, it's been a big story and a big firestorm in Texas. The mayor was a Lesbian, who subpoenaed the sermons of five pastors who she believed did not comply with a local "equal rights" ordinance. Problem here is, she can't force her lifestyle on those of faith. They are allowed to oppose homosexuality in the same manner she supports it.

 

[emilynghiem]

Interesting... I guess some people must be disappointed with this decision. Good.

Hi TemplarKormac

I heard that some Pastors turned the other cheek,
and SENT their sermons to the Mayor
ASKING her to read it, saying it might influence her to change her lifestyle.

Why sue when these people offer their sermons freely for the spirit of uplifting others?

When sued for your cloak, give them your undergarments also.
When asked to walk one mile offer to walk two.

Watch what you ask for, you just might get it!

 

[Katzndogz]

This mayor tried to say that her daughter was denied a driver's license because she has two mothers. In reality it was because the girl didn't have the correct identification. She stepped in it twice.

 

[emilynghiem]

I'm not familiar with this story.

Religious liberty being preserved is one point I believe in.

Here Wake:
Update Equal Rights Transgender controversy divides Houston US Message Board - Political Discussion Forum

Here is where the issue started.

Mayor Parker used her last term to fulfill promises to the LBGT community that raised
millions for her to get elected multiple times to office, especially using funds from California
and other people outside Houston where she is supposed to represent the citizens first, not national agenda.

Now I am a supporter of LBGT and believe in Constitutional equality.
however, refusing to redress grievances by other citizens and denying equal due process, protections and representations
to those interests is NOT in the Constitutional interests of LBGT but is playing the same political games that excluded them!

So I am NOT into "two wrongs make a right"
I believe the right solutions do not REQUIRE this political gameplaying on EITHER side.
So that is why I am opposed to violating consent of the governed and the laws in place;
they need to be changed but by consensus not overriding other taxpaying citizens now having to sue to get
the City to follow its own rules.

You change the rules by changing them, not breaking them.

Where Mayor Parker went really off base,
even after the ordinance was passed which was contested enough,
there were 51,000 signatures of registered voters submitted (about 3 X what was required) to
put the contested ordinance on hold until it could be reviewed in Court.

But Mayor Parker used the City Attorney/Legal Dept
to override that condition, and formally declare only 15,000+ signatures were
valid, short of the 17,000 needed.

Even AFTER the City Secretary stopped counting at 19000 because she
already verified enough signatures.

So the citizens groups had to SUE to prove in Court they had
the necessary minimum number of signatures.

So Parker is trying to drag this out until after she leaves office.

Citizens having to SUE to get the City to follow its own rules,
when the ordinance was already questionable and contested.

And they pulled this voiding or miscounting of signed petition names,
even publishing the names online to try to verify if these were forged,
to HARASS the names of signatories and now HARASS the churches
by demanding documentation from them to try to prove something wrong on the other side of this conflict.

All this time the City has
N O M O N E Y

to save TWO national registered historic landmarks in Houston
* the Astrodome
* Freedmen's Town national historic district

but Mayor Parker has used the Legal Dept to fight for this
and the citizens are having to use legal resources to fight back

While the City is losing our national history for "lack of funds"

So the levels of insanity go out the roof on this one.

The original ordinance was already a problem.
Then the petitions had to be collected to counter that.
Now the lawsuits over the petition the City declared void.
Now the hassle over the church involvement has gone national.

So now this is going to get out and more people will see
the antics going on in Houston that have abused
citizens and taxpayers with these conflicts of interest.

Other mayors had conflicts of interest with developers and
making money off deals from the Katrina contracts to
the federal funds that got redirected instead of preserving
national history.

But that didn't get into the news like Mayor Parker's LGBT agenda
behind this ordinance. Previously Parker got away with similar conflicts over
* red light camera policy found unconstitutional
* homeless ordinance argued as govt imposition on religious freedom
* and now this mess over the equal rights ordinance
that went too far and threatened fines on people who asked questions
about cross dressing transgender people in public restrooms, showers and other facilities

At least this might get national attention now!

In short, the lesson is that the City is acting as its own private interest or corporate entity
at the public's expense with a conflict of interest in controlling the taxes, policies and legal dept.

And that we need Constitutional checks on the City Govt to prevent abuses
that the federal govt could not get away with in violation of the Bill of Rights.

Because the City is a private municipality, it has to be SUED
to get them to follow the laws. So this is a conflict of interest.
The City uses tax dollars to fund the legal dept that is pushing private agenda
the citizens did not consent to who are paying for this administration.

If we have separate beliefs, we need to separate jurisdictions and not
abuse public policies,resources or authority to endorse conflicts beliefs.

Annise Parker is trying to act as a private citizens but using public institutions to establish policies.
You can't have it both ways unless all the people consent to that policy so it is equally inclusive of beliefs.

What a mess!
The same thing came up with other issues in the past,
but this time, this finally went national.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Interesting... I guess some people must be disappointed with this decision. Good.

Hi TemplarKormac

I heard that some Pastors turned the other cheek,
and SENT their sermons to the Mayor
ASKING her to read it, saying it might influence her to change her lifestyle.

Why sue when these people offer their sermons freely for the spirit of uplifting others?

When sued for your cloak, give them your undergarments also.
When asked to walk one mile offer to walk two.

Watch what you ask for, you just might get it!

You know your Bible well. The Roman Law of Angaria was used to force members of occupied lands to carry messages and equipment one mile, though it prohibited from making them carrying it more than one mile. Also in Jesus' time, turning the cheek was a protest the Jews would use to demand equality against their Roman oppressors, who used violence as a display of authority and dominance over those they deemed inferior. After doing so, they would turn their left cheek towards the aggressor, forcing him to use his left hand. In that day and age, the left hand was used for... unclean purposes (to put it mildly).

As Walter Wink interprets it, in Matthew 5:40, the debtor has already given the shirt from his back, which was forbidden by Hebrew law. When he gave his cloak, he reduced himself to nakedness. Public nudity was not only a shame on the naked, but the viewer as well.

 

[SwimExpert]

Wake

Yeah, it's been a big story and a big firestorm in Texas. The mayor was a Lesbian, who subpoenaed the sermons of five pastors who she believed did not comply with a local "equal rights" ordinance. Problem here is, she can't force her lifestyle on those of faith. They are allowed to oppose homosexuality in the same manner she supports it.

Sounds like that is an extremely in complete synopsis. The subpoenas are part of a lawsuit brought against the city by an activist group that is seeking the repeal of the new ordinance. Personally I can't understand the value of obtaining the sermons. But on its face I agree with what was said in the article about it being turned into an apparent media storm when it didn't have to be.